Tests, cheating, and educational corruption
Education think-tank Fair Test’s excellent fact sheet on cheating and the harmful consequences of high stakes testing to students, parents, and teachers.
“Erasing errors and filling in correct test answers is just one of many ways to “cheat” on standardized tests. The scandals in Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington DC, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and many other jurisdictions are the tip of an iceberg. Across the nation, strategies that boost scores without improving learning, including narrow teaching to the test and pushing out low-scoring students, are spreading rapidly. Widespread corruption that undermines educational quality is an inevitable consequence of the overuse and misuse of high-stakes testing, just as Donald Campbell predicted. …
NCLB and related state and local high-stakes testing policies put intense pressure on teachers, principals and other educators. The Georgia investigation into the Atlanta cheating found, “The targets set by the district were often unreasonable, especially given their cumulative effect over the years. Additionally, the administration put
